So even though I knew it was an asshole move, I distanced myself.

I didn’t call as often as I had before.

I ignored the voice in the back of my head telling me that I missed her and she sure as hell was missing me.

On Monday, after I talked to her, I volunteered for a run.

I completely forgot to call her the day of her parents’ funeral—which made me feel like a complete dick and distance myself even more.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.

I just kept fucking up, and I kept waiting for her to call me on it—almost wishing she would bitch me out.

But she didn’t. She just took what I gave her and didn’t make a single noise in complaint.

And that pissed me off even more.

It was no longer enough for her to need me. I wanted her to be willing to fight for me.

Chapter 33

Callie

A week went by with only sporadic calls from Asa, and I was starting to wonder if I’d done something to piss him off. It’s not like I expected him to be calling me every hour on the hour, but what was once a phone call a night had turned into once a week. By the time that Friday rolled around, I was on pins and needles wondering if he was going to show up like he’d said he would.

He hadn’t mentioned visiting again, but I was hoping that he was just going to surprise me. It was lame, and I knew it, but I held out hope that even though he was practically ignoring me, he still wanted to see me.

When I got home from school on Friday afternoon, I felt a small bit of panic flutter in my chest as I took in the apartment. Farrah had spent almost every day with me after school and the place was trashed. There were food wrappers stuffed in the couch, unidentified dried liquids all over the counter and the floor, and there was a weird but disgusting smell coming from the garbage bag that I’d been too lazy to take out.

I couldn’t let Grease see how horrid I’d let the apartment get, so I threw my bag onto the couch and raced toward the bedroom to change clothes. I got about halfway down the short hallway before shaking my head frantically and going back to pick up my bag so I could hang it on the end of my bed where it belonged. If I was going to clean up, I couldn’t leave shit lying around.

It took me two hours and what felt like five buckets of sweat to clean the apartment, but by the time I was done it looked almost as good as when Gram had cleaned it. I wanted it to be sparkling, and I knew it wasn’t—but I just couldn’t figure out what the hell I’d missed. Gram was a freaking magician. God, I wished I knew where her list was. She’d left it on the fridge, but I had no idea where it had gotten lost and I had a horrible feeling that it was in the disgusting trash somewhere.

There was no way I was rifling through that nastiness. When I took it to the dumpster, I’d found out that it had seeped into the bottom of the garbage can and started fucking fermenting. I’d had to clean the bottom of it with an entire container of disinfectant wipes, and the whole time I was reaching in the can—up to my waist—my heart was pounding. I just knew that Asa was going to walk in while I was hip deep in a freaking garbage can.

He didn’t.

He also didn’t show up when I took a long shower to clean off the sweat and garbage juice, or when I spent half an hour blow drying my hair.

He didn’t show up when I was making dinner, or eating, or cleaning up.

And he didn’t show up while I worked on what little homework I had while trying to watch a movie.

He didn’t show up at all.

When I finally crawled into bed at midnight, my belly felt… hollow. I berated myself for imagining that he’d show up to surprise me, but I’d been so sure that if he hadn’t been able to get away, he would have called. Those thoughts—the silly thoughts that convinced me that he’d never stand me up, had my heart racing in fear. I started imagining him getting into an accident on the way to see me and how awful I was for thinking the worst.

So I called him, just to make sure he was okay.

“Hey, babe,” he answered on the third ring, sounding just fine.

“Hey, I was just… calling to say hi,” I lied. I couldn’t tell him that I’d been waiting all day for him, or that I’d been thinking he was dead on the side of the road somewhere. He hadn’t even mentioned coming to see me in weeks, and I didn’t want to look like a jackass for assuming.

“Oh, okay. Everything all right?” he asked gently, and then my stomach became one huge knot because I could hear him covering up the phone while he talked to someone else.

“I’m fine. I just thought you’d be visiting soon,” I answered him, immediately slapping myself on the leg as I realized how needy I sounded.

“Yeah, shit’s been pretty crazy around here. I haven’t been able to get away. You know how it is…” his words trailed off, but I could hear people speaking in the background and then he chuckled.

That small laugh hit some sort of trigger, because all of a sudden I didn’t feel like an asshole for calling him. All of a sudden, he was the asshole.

“Hey, Grease?” I called sweetly to gain his attention.

I knew the second he realized what I’d said because he inhaled harshly into the phone.

“The fuck?” he growled, almost giving me the reaction I was hoping for.

“The next time you tell me that you’re going to be here, could you please let me know if you’re not actually going to be here?” my tone hadn’t changed, but there was no way he could miss the bite in my words.